I appreciate Steyer's newfound emphasis on housing, but I have real concerns over how quickly Mahan was dismissed, for reasons that don't appear to go beyond "vibes."
Mahan is clearly and obviously more focused on housing, while Steyer has great plans but a million competing priorities. How sure are we that he'll prioritize housing over, say, healthcare or taxes when obstacles inevitably crop up?
Furthermore, the focus for YIMBYs at this point should be removing barriers to housing rather than expansion of upzoning. We've done the hard zoning reform; we now have (barely) sufficient zoned area in populated cities to allow lots of infill housing. At this point, the main barrier to housing is fees, forced IZ, and labor requirements. Mahan is obviously better than Steyer on each of those.
But, my most substantive concern at this point is the dismissal of Mahan *simply for being from a city government*. Is it the position of YIMBY Action that city government officials are inherently unqualified because they *might* empathize with cities against statewide pushes for housing? That was an incredibly disappointing line to read. If you have evidence that Mahan would support local control over state mandates, show it -- don't just imply that he's a secret opponent of housing law.
Criticizing Mahan for being concerned about city budgets is while lauding Steyer for his empty, unpaid-for promise of building a million houses (along with all his other expensive, unrealistic promises like single-state, single payer health care) is, quite frankly, kind of juvenile. The failure of many single-issue advocacy groups to keep some kind of perspective that there might be other legitimate interests to consider is one of the things that has led to such disfunction in politics and our government. Downgrading a mayor who is actively promoting new housing for thinking about the budget, which is also the job of the governor, is beyond the pale.
Taking your comment for the content, rather than the tone I think that's a point of tension.
Ideally, I want to hear both arguments, is that it's fine for the budget and excellent for the people. And I would want my governor to be thinking that if a policy was wildly successful for reducing poverty or uplifting the middle class, that we needed to then go fix whatever it was that was making it not work for city budgets.
I bring this up because I think Steyer is being quite realistic about answering the fees problem with a concrete answer of split roll Prop 13 reform.
Lauren, Thank you for your thoughtful response to my comment. Regrettably, your implication that my tone was out of line is absolutely correct and I sincerely apologize. My only defense was that, as a TV-watching, Internet-using Californian, I had been aggravated to the point of mania by Steyer’s incessant commercials promising cheaper and more housing, lower insurance rates, lower electricity rates, and other empty sloganeering. I should not have vented by being rude to you. Again, my apologies and keep up the good fight for YIMBY principles.
A bit of a depressing endorsement, although I don't know that I can blame you, since the options seem pretty bad. How can Steyer be "pro-housing" when he is so opposed by the people building housing. I don't really understand what's going on there, and I'm afraid that it's yet another case of someone talking constantly about how important housing is, while not actually supporting any policies that will make it easier to build housing.
I've been a bit frustrated by this, but it's not the first time I've seen this. Large developers frequently prioritize someone who is clearly someone they "could do business with," having a historically correct) impression that the main way housing gets through is with personal relationships to work the system, and wanting to have someone who seems like a deal maker at the helm. They're not making the transition to the idea that there would be a permitting culture of firm-but-fair policies rather than a culture of negotiations. Steyer does not seem like someone they could make a deal with, and they're worried he won't actually get the policy framework in place where that isn't important.
I'll add to that many have strong desire to protect Prop 13, even though it hurts them on net. This anti-tax vibe mindset means they're telling one another he's going to impose a strict rent control across the state, even when he is actively said that he is opposed to that policy.
I've seen this frequently on the city level, where anyone who seems progressive is someone that business people fear, and it's very hard for them to support a pro housing progressive. They don't think it'll actually work. And to be fair, it has been extremely uncommon in the past, so while I don't agree with them, I do understand this skepticism.
Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, I also doubt that we will transition to “firm but fair policies”.
My interpretation is that if there was a YIMBY candidate who really would cause building to increase in California, developers would love that person. But none of the candidates offer that, unfortunately. So the developers are free to pick off other reasons. Like unions going for Trump, they pick culturally when they don’t perceive it to have a real economic impact.
I mean, a lot of developers also are Republicans and supported Trump, who proceeded to make their materials and labor drastically more expensive. People aren't always completely rational about this stuff. Or, put another way, they may be prioritizing something other than their pure economic interests.
I dunno, the developers I have met, they seem like they really like to make money. My take is that none of these candidates are pro-housing, so housing developers don't really have any plausible candidate to support.
In California, supporting a Republican is basically the same as not voting. It's like giving up entirely. Therefore I find this news depressing, that YIMBY groups cannot even agree with housing developers on what to do, politically. Housing developers should be the EASIEST of any group to find common ground with.
California Republicans are pretty terrible on housing, for the most part, and definitely the ones who ran for gov this year are bad. They don't want Texas-style deregulation, they want the right to preserve suburban fortresses against anyone changing anything ever. See: Huntington Beach.
And again: If people were remotely rational about this stuff, you wouldn't have seen any developers voting for the guy who was promising to tariff their materials, deport a bunch of their workers, and scare a bunch more of their workers into hiding. Yet here we are.
Thank you Laura and YIMBY Action, I really enjoyed this read and also appreciated the comments on this article.
If you do write an article on the idea that new housing doesn’t pay for itself and drags down municipal finances (which I've seen explicitly on Nextdoor, and which I'm pretty sure I've seen implicitly in Arlington VA governance with they expectation that to be able to build additional units beyond a certain amount, they need to pay money to an affordable housing fund or provide community benefits, which to me seems backwards; it's builders of less dense housing e.g. single family homes who imo should have to pay for inefficient use of public lands, but ofc it being easier to build single family homes than apartments is a major reason why the YIMBY movement is necessary), I would love to read it!
Seconding the call to write a piece on this issue of housing "paying for itself" or not.
At first approximation, the richest places with the flushest city budgets are the places with the most housing, especially dense housing.
On the other hand, we know that very sprawly development CANNOT support its own infrastructure in the long run, a problem generally solved with more sprawl, sadly (see: Strong Towns at their best, not their most NIMBY).
We also know that cities commission Nexus studies on this issue that of course end up slanted in their favor to justify high developer fees.
I appreciate Steyer's newfound emphasis on housing, but I have real concerns over how quickly Mahan was dismissed, for reasons that don't appear to go beyond "vibes."
Mahan is clearly and obviously more focused on housing, while Steyer has great plans but a million competing priorities. How sure are we that he'll prioritize housing over, say, healthcare or taxes when obstacles inevitably crop up?
Furthermore, the focus for YIMBYs at this point should be removing barriers to housing rather than expansion of upzoning. We've done the hard zoning reform; we now have (barely) sufficient zoned area in populated cities to allow lots of infill housing. At this point, the main barrier to housing is fees, forced IZ, and labor requirements. Mahan is obviously better than Steyer on each of those.
But, my most substantive concern at this point is the dismissal of Mahan *simply for being from a city government*. Is it the position of YIMBY Action that city government officials are inherently unqualified because they *might* empathize with cities against statewide pushes for housing? That was an incredibly disappointing line to read. If you have evidence that Mahan would support local control over state mandates, show it -- don't just imply that he's a secret opponent of housing law.
This was a #hateread for me, sorry.
Mahan has no chance to win. He came it too late and is polling fourth or fifth.
Criticizing Mahan for being concerned about city budgets is while lauding Steyer for his empty, unpaid-for promise of building a million houses (along with all his other expensive, unrealistic promises like single-state, single payer health care) is, quite frankly, kind of juvenile. The failure of many single-issue advocacy groups to keep some kind of perspective that there might be other legitimate interests to consider is one of the things that has led to such disfunction in politics and our government. Downgrading a mayor who is actively promoting new housing for thinking about the budget, which is also the job of the governor, is beyond the pale.
Taking your comment for the content, rather than the tone I think that's a point of tension.
Ideally, I want to hear both arguments, is that it's fine for the budget and excellent for the people. And I would want my governor to be thinking that if a policy was wildly successful for reducing poverty or uplifting the middle class, that we needed to then go fix whatever it was that was making it not work for city budgets.
I bring this up because I think Steyer is being quite realistic about answering the fees problem with a concrete answer of split roll Prop 13 reform.
Lauren, Thank you for your thoughtful response to my comment. Regrettably, your implication that my tone was out of line is absolutely correct and I sincerely apologize. My only defense was that, as a TV-watching, Internet-using Californian, I had been aggravated to the point of mania by Steyer’s incessant commercials promising cheaper and more housing, lower insurance rates, lower electricity rates, and other empty sloganeering. I should not have vented by being rude to you. Again, my apologies and keep up the good fight for YIMBY principles.
A bit of a depressing endorsement, although I don't know that I can blame you, since the options seem pretty bad. How can Steyer be "pro-housing" when he is so opposed by the people building housing. I don't really understand what's going on there, and I'm afraid that it's yet another case of someone talking constantly about how important housing is, while not actually supporting any policies that will make it easier to build housing.
I've been a bit frustrated by this, but it's not the first time I've seen this. Large developers frequently prioritize someone who is clearly someone they "could do business with," having a historically correct) impression that the main way housing gets through is with personal relationships to work the system, and wanting to have someone who seems like a deal maker at the helm. They're not making the transition to the idea that there would be a permitting culture of firm-but-fair policies rather than a culture of negotiations. Steyer does not seem like someone they could make a deal with, and they're worried he won't actually get the policy framework in place where that isn't important.
I'll add to that many have strong desire to protect Prop 13, even though it hurts them on net. This anti-tax vibe mindset means they're telling one another he's going to impose a strict rent control across the state, even when he is actively said that he is opposed to that policy.
I've seen this frequently on the city level, where anyone who seems progressive is someone that business people fear, and it's very hard for them to support a pro housing progressive. They don't think it'll actually work. And to be fair, it has been extremely uncommon in the past, so while I don't agree with them, I do understand this skepticism.
Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, I also doubt that we will transition to “firm but fair policies”.
My interpretation is that if there was a YIMBY candidate who really would cause building to increase in California, developers would love that person. But none of the candidates offer that, unfortunately. So the developers are free to pick off other reasons. Like unions going for Trump, they pick culturally when they don’t perceive it to have a real economic impact.
I mean, a lot of developers also are Republicans and supported Trump, who proceeded to make their materials and labor drastically more expensive. People aren't always completely rational about this stuff. Or, put another way, they may be prioritizing something other than their pure economic interests.
I dunno, the developers I have met, they seem like they really like to make money. My take is that none of these candidates are pro-housing, so housing developers don't really have any plausible candidate to support.
In California, supporting a Republican is basically the same as not voting. It's like giving up entirely. Therefore I find this news depressing, that YIMBY groups cannot even agree with housing developers on what to do, politically. Housing developers should be the EASIEST of any group to find common ground with.
California Republicans are pretty terrible on housing, for the most part, and definitely the ones who ran for gov this year are bad. They don't want Texas-style deregulation, they want the right to preserve suburban fortresses against anyone changing anything ever. See: Huntington Beach.
And again: If people were remotely rational about this stuff, you wouldn't have seen any developers voting for the guy who was promising to tariff their materials, deport a bunch of their workers, and scare a bunch more of their workers into hiding. Yet here we are.
Thank you Laura and YIMBY Action, I really enjoyed this read and also appreciated the comments on this article.
If you do write an article on the idea that new housing doesn’t pay for itself and drags down municipal finances (which I've seen explicitly on Nextdoor, and which I'm pretty sure I've seen implicitly in Arlington VA governance with they expectation that to be able to build additional units beyond a certain amount, they need to pay money to an affordable housing fund or provide community benefits, which to me seems backwards; it's builders of less dense housing e.g. single family homes who imo should have to pay for inefficient use of public lands, but ofc it being easier to build single family homes than apartments is a major reason why the YIMBY movement is necessary), I would love to read it!
Seconding the call to write a piece on this issue of housing "paying for itself" or not.
At first approximation, the richest places with the flushest city budgets are the places with the most housing, especially dense housing.
On the other hand, we know that very sprawly development CANNOT support its own infrastructure in the long run, a problem generally solved with more sprawl, sadly (see: Strong Towns at their best, not their most NIMBY).
We also know that cities commission Nexus studies on this issue that of course end up slanted in their favor to justify high developer fees.
Someone needs to tease all of this out!